By SAAD FAZIL of VentureBeat
Published: April 16, 2010
Pundits are declaring mobile the new PC. The number of mobile phones far
outstrips the number of desktops. Mobile phones are available to people
in the developing world who never had an opportunity to buy or even use
a PC. With phones becoming smarter, there will be even less need for
people to own PCs. Microsoft has dominated the PC-based world ever since
it drove Apple close to extinction in the mid ’90s. But with Apple’s
strong footing in mobile, its recent release of a larger, tablet form
factor, iPad, also based on its mobile iPhone OS, and more form factors
likely on the way to challenge the traditional PC, we may be in for a
rematch...
...Imagine a stronger and slightly bigger iPad (with perhaps even a
keyboard) with multi-tasking capability among features that are lacking
in today’s iPad*...the threat to Apple’s mobile dominance won’t come
from another platform (like Windows or Blackberry) but from web apps and
cloud computing.**
http://www.nytimes.com/external/venturebeat/2010/04/16/16venturebeat-is-apple-readying-for-a-rematch-with-microso-22806.html
--
*A bigger iPad, with a keyboard? Sounds like a notebook. FWIW. I used an
iPad on Tuesday. It's heavy, slippery, can be easily dropped. Keyboard
is not much better than my iPod keyboard. The curves may be beautiful,
but not for holding securely. Combined with the $69 iPad keyboard dock,
together they weigh more and are less portable than small notebook.
Apple--get back to R&D. I'll take a mini-notebook or 13" MacBook Pro,
and keep my iPod Touch, thank you.
**Our broadband went out yesterday, all day, didn't come back until this
afternoon. And it's slow, but faster is too expensive. Glad we don't
store important things in the so-called "cloud" or use only the simplest
web apps, otherwise we'd be SOL.
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